


it came in tsunami tides / too much

by outofcontextbucky



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Death, Poetry, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), god im crying, ironman - Freeform, peterparker, prose, spiderman - Freeform, tonystark - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-27 14:04:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19792426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outofcontextbucky/pseuds/outofcontextbucky
Summary: father and sontwo nights of torment and longing





	it came in tsunami tides / too much

It was a lot heavier tonight than it usually was.

When it washed over him, it came in waves–no, tsunami tides, and it brought Tony out of his bed and into his porch, the wind helping him breathe a little better, but it never washed him ashore. 

There was no shore in this deep, black ocean. 

It was 5 years ago, but there he was, the waves swallowing him whole again, spitting him out just to drag him back under, over and over, and no matter how long he tried to keep afloat, the waves sunk him deeper. 

He couldn’t breathe.

_Mr. Stark, I don’t feel so good._

It rang in his ears so clearly, it was painful, and no amount of time that passed helped dull the pain he would feel when it washed over him so mercilessly. 

Tony looked up at the sky, struggling to breathe even with all the cold air surrounding him, struggling

to feel anything in his fingertips even if he was gripping the door frame as hard as he could. 

He kept his eyes on the dark blue of the night even though it hurt him to keep them open.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, hoping the wind he couldn’t feel on his face would carry it where it needed to go, where Tony so desperately needed it to go to, because the truth was that he knew he was whispering it to no one, and the thought was killing him, drowning him, suffocating him.

He closed his eyes, and it was five years ago, and the kid’s shaky voice and bloody face was all Tony could see against the backdrop of blood and horror on an unfamiliar terrain.

_I don’t wanna go, I don’t wanna go... Mr. Stark, please..._

It was an echo now, a painful lullaby Tony was trapped inside of, all he could see his was ash, all he could hear was his voice, and all he could feel was the riptide tearing him apart just like the day he saw it with his own eyes, the feeling as fresh as ever.

He was sitting on his porch, staring up at the endless night, but waves were engulfing him, and he couldn’t fight back something as strong as the pain in his throat and his eyes and his _life_.

They lost the fight, they lost the war. Every moment spent struggling and in pain lead up to a moment that put everything Tony thought was painful to shame, because this wasn’t pain, this was a black, cold ocean, a merciless ocean slamming him over and over, letting him know that every speckle of pain he once knew was nothing.

_Mr. Stark, please, I don’t wanna go…_

He was crying, shaking on his porch, but no, he wasn’t there, he was on a dark planet, watching the kid go, like a sick joke that wouldn’t stop torturing him, eating him from inside, repeating to him that they had lost the war, they lost the fight.

_I’m sorry._

But Tony lost the kid.

-

There were so many things he never had the chance to say.

The thought mocked him, taunted him, hollowed out his brain until his body gave out and his vision unclear.

Spider-Man fell on the roof, his collision with the tough cement was nothing against the impact, the force of seeing the lustrous red and gold, a suit of armor, tormenting him, because there was nothing inside.

He was thankful for the mask, because his eyes were red, his face soaked in tears and apologies that would never reach the ears of a dead man.

Every fear he ever had, inconsequential. Every pain, laughable.

This… now, this washed over him like waves that never ended, storms that flooded every vein in his body, the nightmare his nightmares would have never even imagined.

He used to think of pain like a punch in the gut. Now he was wishing for a punch in the gut, because never in a thousand goddamn years did he think that he’d have to navigate in world where Tony Stark was gone.

He wasn’t in pain. There was nothing else _but_ pain.

“I’m sorry,” he was saying, no–he was crying, and he pulled off his mask and stared up at the starless sky, the great unknown, wondering if he could hear his sorry, wondering how many apologies he’d have to say before it reached his place in the galaxy.

It was too clear, too soon, too fast, too _much_.

The sight of him under a dark sky, the life being pulled out of his eyes, ripped the boy’s insides, turned him into nothing but a vessel of agony and an apologies, spoken over and over.

Solstice wasn’t real, and the kid could only find it when he dived deep enough and swam through the horrors he was too weak to wrestle with, and still, it only came in the form of a memory.

His voice, his teasing, his laughter, and God, it was a chorus that streamed through his brain, easing the constant throbbing of pain that came with being alive when he wasn’t.

A hug. Against a backdrop of war and blood.

“This is nice,” he had said to him.

Peter opened his eyes, the big sky barely visible through the flood of hurt wetting his eyes, his entire face, reminding him of where he was, and that there was no going back.

_This is nice._

Unacceptable. Embarrassing. 

Because now it was cutting him from the inside, drowning him when he was on top of a building, to think that he would ever be so ungrateful for any moment Tony Stark shared with him. 

_This is nice_.

Nice is a goddamn ice cream cone on a hot day.

No, this is the memory that gave his wounded, his tortured soul any semblance of rest and quiet. This is the feeling that paused the pain that crept out of his heart and weakened his limbs, that lifted the weight off his weak chest. The only memory that mattered. The only thing that told him Mr. Stark loved him too.

There was no doubt in his mind that right then and there, as he writhed on the rooftop in pain no one else could see, crying for a break from the world’s sick joke, that he’d do anything for another second with him.

Because god, there was still so much to be said.


End file.
